Piedimonsterz: Kids, Kinesthetics and The Fitness Diary

Aram Armstrong mentioned a project he worked on in a Service Design course at Ivrea that involved using a pedometer that would sustain or enliven or otherwise affect an electronic avatar that you could then jack into your computer back at home and it would author a blog entry about how good it was feeling based on movement.

It’s called Piedimonsters.

Piedimonsters are the fun, fitness monsters that help motivate kids be more active. The Piedimonsters service includes a physical device carried on the person (a virtual pet pedometer), a website which takes the data from the device and provides both a qualitative and quantitative activity report, as well as neighborhood hubs for organizing local group activities.

Why do I blog this? I like the idea of a pervasive avatar especially one that’s tangibly and kinesthetically linked to your activity seems like a promising design. And the idea of auto-blogging is kind of brilliant, in a way. I mean, it’s a step toward the auto food/exercise diary.

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